Distillery News

The Frank McHardy Distillation

Frank’s visit to Devon for the one year anniversary of the First Distillations also saw him complete a distillation of his own. During the day we were joined by a number of whisky enthusiasts, and also Mr Ian Cobham, Head Brewer at Dartmoor Brewery – the man responsible for making our beer wash to Frank’s specification.

The spirit started flowing at just after 10.00am. Frank let the heads (or foreshots) run for just over 9 litres before he was satisfied that we were ready to collect the hearts. The spirit then flowed until almost 2.00pm until the alcohol content had come down from 75% to just under 60%. At that point, Frank made the cut to cease collecting the hearts, and we were into running the tails. He then evaluated the new spirit produced. We had run 275 litres with an ABV of 70.6%. A second spirit run, incorporating the low wines from Frank’s first spirit run brought the volume up to 500 litres. Frank then cut the spirit by adding 60 litres of pure Dartmoor spring water to bring the spirit down to optimum barreling strength of 63%.

In classic tradition, Frank selected two Olorosso Sherry casks to mature his distillation. Frank specified a light toasting to the interior surface of the casks, plus that they were freshly emptied sherry casks. As with our first distillations, Frank had directed that one barrel should be bottled at 3 years, and the second at 5 years. He also suggested that they are to be bottled at cask strength. At this stage, we are not sure what that will be, but we estimate it to be between 55-60% ABV. Frank will return to monitor maturation on his distillation, and our other casks in the near future.

The Frank McHardy Distillation will soon be available to reserve on our website. Sign up to our mailing list and follow us on our social channels to be notified of the release date.